Norman Scribner passes the baton at Choral Arts Society

“Sayeth the spirit, that they rest from their labors,
and that their works follow after them.”

— Johannes Brahms

It’s a vintage Norman Scribner story. When the Army drafted the young organist, then 22, he took only three books with him. The Bible, of course. No clergyman’s son could forget that. “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare,” good for passing evenings in the flatlands of Fort Chaffee, Ark. And lastly, a thin, emerald book containing the music and German text of Johannes Brahms’s “Ein Deutsches Requiem.”

Three parts of one man, neatly stacked in an Army footlocker.

Shortly after he began basic training, Scribner returned from an exercise and found his essential reading missing.

“I see we have a scholar here!” barked a sergeant, holding up Scribner’s books in front of his unit.

“He jeered and made fun of the whole thing,” the conductor remembers. “It was embarrassing, but I knew I had some great stuff on my side.”

That was 1958. Elvis Pressley had shuffled through the base days before. Now, maestro Scribner, 76, whom everyone calls Norman, stores the discolored pages of that book near the grand piano in his overflowing home library.

“In my youth, I regarded Brahms as the greatest composer of all time,” Scribner said.

And the piece is still among his favorites. For Scribner, the piece is a living requiem, one that served as a blueprint for his career and spiritual life. Which is why it’s so fitting that the retiring conductor, who founded the Choral Arts Society of Washington 47 years ago, will conduct the National Symphony Orchestra and his amateur choristers performing “Ein Deutsches Requiem” at the final concert of his career on April 22 at the Kennedy Center.

Scribner’s retirement signals the end of a musical era, a half century that evolved alongside the soundtrack he provided to a city’s sweeping changes. And now, Scribner says, “It’s time.” Time to move on. Time to conclude, or as Brahms posits in this seminal work, time to pass the torch. In September, Scott Tucker, 55, will leave his post as the choral director of Cornell University to succeed Scribner as artistic director of the Choral Arts Society for the 2012-2013 season. Scribner gave the search committee his full support and refused to participate in the international search, so as not to taint or influence the direction of the chorus. Choral Arts made the announcement in March.

“Everything in life has a cycle to it,” Scribner says, sitting in the sunroom of his home in Northwest Washington. “Sure I could go on for more years, but . . . it all comes down to this general sensation that there’s a right time for everything. The Bible says there’s a time for this and a time for that, and I just felt instinctively that it was time for a younger person to get in.”

But until the younger man arrives, Scribner has a choir to direct.

I. Sow in tears . . . reap in joy

“Wo ist dein Sieg?” Where is your victory? they bellow at a Tuesday evening rehearsal at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church’s Satterlee Hall. By now, the chorus is well beyond the sorrowful first movement. It’s nearing the end on Page 78, harping on the German Sieg — pronounce it Zeek, the language coach reminds — as Scribner drills his foot into the podium, stomping out the staccato.